Imperfect Love
by Nico.Diangelo.Queen
Summary: "Ah, Evans, but you know deep down you secretly love my presence." The story of Lily and James' seventh and final year. Read and Review!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, hope you like it! :D**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. All the credits go to J.K. Rowling. :D**

Lily Evans made her way down to King's Cross Station, Platform 9 and 3/4. The day was hot and muggy, the sun gleaming brightly overhead. Lily was excited to return to Hogwarts for her 7th, and final year. After a memorably terrible summer, which involved Petunia's boyfriend, Vernon Dursley and Lily's owl, Solstice flying loose around the house, pudding, and a very unhappy Petunia. She looked back at her parents who beamed at her.

"Bye mum, dad. Petunia." Lily said, forcing her sister's name out. Petunia looked away. Her mom and dad waved as Lily ran through the barrier. Her parents almost never came with her through the barrier, partially because her sister refused and declared 'running through a brick wall was a freakish thing to do'.

As Lily entered the platform, she immediately spotted her best friend, Catherine Adenine.

"CAT!" Lily called racing over.

"Oh my god, Lily!" Cat said squealing, hugging Lily. Cat was even prettier than Lily remembered, she had long black hair with streaks of aqua, and dark green eyes. Dragging their luggage onto the train, they reached an empty compartment with their other friends, Jessamine Tisdale, Emmeline Vance and Carol Elowen. They 5 of them had just began their usual round of summer gossip when the compartment door slid open again.

"He is rather good-looking, you can't den-" Jess was saying until she noticed who had entered the compartment.

"Hello, ladies." Sirius Black said winking. Lily groaned and looked up at the ceiling, feigning great interest in the swirl patterns on the roof.

"What was that about someone being good-looking Jess?" James Potter said running his hand through his hair. "Wasn't me by any chance was it?" he asked jokingly.

"Ignore him, its obviously me." Sirius said playfully pushing James aside. The two boys tripped landing on the floor of the compartment.

"Smooth. REAL smooth guys." another voice said from behind. Remus Lupin stood behind them rolling his eyes.

"Shut it Moony." James said from the floor. As Remus was entering the compartment, Sirius stuck out his foot causing Remus to trip and almost land on top of Cat, before catching himself.

"Yes, Moony, we can't all be gifted with your 'gracefulness'" Sirius mocked using his fingers to quote the word gracefulness.

"Sorry, Cat." Remus muttered, blushing. Catherine just playfully rolled her eyes. Lily was now looking at the window, looking anywhere but the Marauders. Even though Cat might be good friends with them, Lily certainly wasn't.

"Anything from the trolley dear?" The witch pushing the trolley said calling out.

"Oh! Oh! ME!" Sirius exclaimed. Him, James, Remus, Cat and Jess rushed to buy their sweets.

"Here guys. Catch!" Jess said, tossing Em, Lily and Carol each a pumpkin pasty. The rest of them returned to their seats.

"Don't remember inviting you guys here." Lily muttering, biting into her pumpkin pasty.

"Ah, Evans, but you know deep down you secretly love our presence." James said with an air.

"Yeah, Prongs, she loves it deep deep deep down." Sirius laughed opening a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

"Really really really deep down. So deep it might not even be there." Remus said jokingly, opening a Chocolate Frog. Sirius reached his hand over and attempted to grab one of Remus's chocolate frogs before Remus slapped it away.

"Don't even think about it, Black." Remus said seriously.

"Ah, Moony and his chocolate addiction. I was only kidding." Sirius teased. He passed everyone an Every Flavor Bean.

"Fudge." he said tasting his bean.

"Vanilla." James declared.

"Peanuts."

"Apple."

"Lime."

"Cinnamon."

"Grass." Lily said making a face. "How come you guys get all the good flavors?" she pouted.

"Bad luck Lils," Cat said sympathetically before popping one that tasted a little like ink into her mouth. Soon enough, almost the whole group had started a competition to see who could toss more beans into their mouth.

"13!" James said victoriously.

"17!" Cat bragged, tossing another bean in the air which she caught successfully.

"Guys, guys, we all know who the real winner is." Sirius interjected. He tossed a bean, which missed and bounced off his nose.

"What a winner." Jess said sarcastically. Before they knew it, the train had arrived at Hogwarts. The seven of them departed the train, rode to Hogwarts and sat down at the Gryffindor table, to watch the Sorting.

After the sorting, food piled on the large silver and gold platters. Stuffing themselves full, the Great Hall retired back to their common rooms.

The next morning, the schedules were passed out and Cat groaned, looking at her classes.

"Divination, Potions, Double Charms, and Transfiguration today." she said shuddering. "Well the last 3 classes aren't so bad, but Divination!" she exclaimed. She dropped her Divination book with a thud on the breakfast table. "Screw Divination, its just a waste of time with that old fraud excuse of a teacher." she grumbled.

"Darn right she is." Carol snorted. "You know what she told me yesterday? That I was fated to die from some ridiculous death."

"Ah, but you see," Em said imitating Professor Trelawney's misty voice. "When Jupiter and Venus show up in the sky at the same moment, it is destiny that you will die from being eaten by a giant marshmallow."

Cat laughed and returned to her breakfast. "Stupid Divination...maybe I'm better skiving off of it today..." she muttered.

"Hey, how's my Kitty doing?" a voice said sounding behind Cat.

"Black." Cat said loudly. "I thought I told you NOT to call me that."

Sirius rolled his eyes and slid down in the seat next to her.

"Looks like you have Divination with me and Remus." Sirius remarked peering at her schedule.

"Looks like we all get to have our supposed deaths predicted today." Remus said sarcastically, sitting across from Sirius.

**Hope you like it, hopefully that didn't suck too badly. Please review XD because reviews make me happy! Anyway, bye!**


	2. Chapter 2

At Divination, Sirius, Remus and Cat flopped down on the cushion bean bag chairs. Professor Trelawney gave them all crystal balls and instructed them to 'glance and see what the future would have in store for them.' She passed by their table asking. "Do any of you see anything?"

"Yeah." Sirius said loudly. "Looks like tonight's gonna have a lot of fog." Professor Trelawney scowled and turned to Remus and Cat.

"I see a huge dragon coming and destroying the Ministry of Magic." Cat said sarcastically.

"Well done Ms. Adenine!" Trelawney said peering into her crystal ball. "20 points to Gryffindor, you may have some seer blood in you after all!" she said loftily before waltzing away.

"Woah. Is she serious?" Cat said gaping. "I was just joking..."

"No, you got it wrong" Sirius grinned. "I'm Sirius."

The rest of September passed without much event, except James asking Lily out, yet again, and only to be rejected, yet again. And also the Marauders turning the whole corridor floor on the 2nd floor into ice. A Hogsmeade trip was scheduled for the weekend, and as much as Lily had protested and argued, the group of friends would be spending their Hogsmeade trip hanging with the Marauders, courtesy of Cat and Sirius.

On the day of the trip, Cat had woken up everyone bright and early and insisted they get dressed immediately.

"Why so early?" Jess grumbled. She was not a morning person at all and had been quite unpleased when Cat had proceeded to threaten to throw her off her bed if she didn't wake up.

"She just wants to spend the day with Remus, thats all." Lily said yawning. It was no secret that Cat had a "sort-of" crush on him, well thats at least what she claimed it to be.

Meanwhile, in the Marauders dormitory, Remus had started the painfully, and seemingly impossible task of waking his two friends up.

"Padfoot! Prongs! WAKE UP!" Remus yelled.

"Go away Moony. Lemme sleep more." Sirius muttered, turning his back away. James got up half heartedly, still half asleep.

"Ah give Moony a break, Prongs." James said yawning. "He's just much to excited about the fact that he'll be spending a whole day with Cat..." he broke off his sentence as Remus had thrown a pillow at his face.

"Shut up James. You know you're just dying to spend a day with Lily." Remus said crossly. His friends had always teased him about his crush and even Remus thought himself ridiculous sometimes too. Cat was popular and just about the whole male Hogwarts population was in love with her. Who wouldn't? She was nice, pretty, caring, smart, funny...

His thoughts were broken off when Sirius let out a loud exaggerated yawn, and dragged himself out of bed.

Finally, the group of 7 met outside at the front of the Great Hall. The continued on their way to Hogsmeade, laughing and talking. Even Lily seemed to be enjoying herself. When they arrived, they rushed into Honeydukes and had fun picking out chocolate and strange bright colored candies. They left the shop in high spirits and bags of candy.

"Why don't we stop at the Three Broomsticks?" Cat suggested. The others agreed. As they entered the warm welcoming place, which was, as usual, bustling with people, they squeezed over to the corner, where Madam Rosmerta came to greet them.

"Cat!" Rosmerta exclaimed happily. Rosmerta and Cat were cousins, and Rosmerta had just recently graduated Hogwarts. She was still very attractive, with her bright smile, red hair, and curves.

"7 butterbeers, please, Rose." Cat said smiling. As everyone reached into their pockets and bags to pay, Rosmerta stopped them.

"You guys don't need to pay. Its on me." she said firmly.

"Thanks Rose." Cat said gratefully. Rose winked, and squeezed through the crowd to get their drinks.

"So where to after this?" Sirius said, leaning back in his chair lazily.

"Maybe Vaya's Cafe for lunch?" Em suggested.

"Sounds good to me." Jess said shrugging. As the group finished their drinks and left a tip on the table, they gathered their belongings and headed down the street to a small cafe. There was a sign with the words 'VAYA'S CAFE' in thick black letters. Jess pushed the door open and the group squeezed inside. There weren't many people inside, but the place was welcoming, and the smell of food from the kitchen made everyone's stomach grumble. Unlike other small bars and food shops, the place was sparkly clean, the lights bright, and the people much more friendly.

After a delicious lunch and full, contented stomachs, they strolled down the streets, occasionally entering shops to make quick purchases, or glancing at the colorful window displays. Much too soon, the daylight began to fade, the sun setting behind the hills, signaling it was time to get going back to the castle.

"I actually really enjoyed today." Lily confessed as they headed back to the castle. "You guys aren't as bad as I thought..."

"Well then." James said grinning cheekily. "How about coming to Hogsmeade with me next time?"

"Don't push it Potter." Lily said rolling her eyes. The annoyed tone had settling into her voice again.

As the group of, well mostly, 'friends' walked into the Gryffindor common room, they were greeted with an annoyingly-seemingly-perfect-honey-voice.

"Jamie!" Penelope cried. Almost everyone rolled their eyes in disgust. Penelope Alexis was pretty much perfect with looks-she had long wavy blonde hair, sky blue eyes, and just about everything else. Unfortunately, her personality wasn't so much as perfect...

"Um..hi Penelope." James said awkwardly.

"Why are you, like, hanging out with...them? They're so ugh." she said in a stage whisper, pointing to Lily, Cat, Em, and Jess. "Maybe you and your friends should, like, hang out with me, Paris and Madeline more."

"Well. Maybe, like, the Marauders don't, like, want to be bothered with the presence of someone who so much resembles a donkey." Cat said loudly from the side.

"You know, Cat, I couldn't have put it better myself..." Sirius said smirking.

"Shut it Adenine!" Penelope snarled, facing Cat. "If anyone here looks like a donkey, its you. Don't you know? You look like you couldn't dress to save your life, I'm more surprised you even have friends...but if they're anything as pathetic as you are..."

"Yeah and you must look an angel from heaven." Cat retorted.

"Well, yes, I do, compared to you at the very least." Penelope shot back.

"Pity, we can't say the same about your brain, sometimes I wonder if there's actually anything in there at all, if you know what I mean. I've never really met anyone quite as dumb as you, and quite frankly, it amazes me." Cat drawled.

Penelope opened her mouth furiously to insult Cat as well, but at that moment, Cat had secretly pulled out her wand and shot a hex at Penelope. Penelope's blonde hair instantly turned a pale sickish green.

"YOU INSOLENT LITTLE FREAK! YOU JUST RUINED MY PERFECT HAIR!" Penelope shrieked.

"Shut it, no one wants to hear your little whinny voice." Cat said lazily, flicking her wand. Penelope's mouth opened but no sound protruded from it. Penelope shot daggers at Cat and ran out from the common room, probably to the Hospital Wing.

"Well, that was most amusing." James said laughing.

"That was bloody brilliant!" Jess said giving her friend a high-five.


End file.
